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Isaac Clarke
"I knew these people. I can't believe they are all dead." -Isaac's mission log commentary, Chapter 7. Isaac Clarke, the protagonist/player character of Dead Space, is a systems engineer working for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C). Just prior to the events of Dead Space he was assigned to respond to a distress call from the USG Ishimura, first of the massive planet cracking class of starships. Early Life Isaac was born in Northeastern America, son of renowned ship designer Paul Clarke, who left for space when Isaac was still a child. In her husband's absence his mother Octavia turned to the Church of Unitology. Isaac took after his father and obtained education in electrical and mechanical engineering, and was selected for a prominent engineering academy, however was unable to afford the tuition, because his mother had purchased a Vested-level title in the Unitologist Church. Nonetheless, Isaac graduated with high honors from a lesser college and became a systems engineer like his father. After several years, when it became apparent to his superiors that Isaac possessed the ability for original engineering solutions, he was promoted to a position closer to the major shipping lines. For some time, Isaac has been attempting to reunite with his father, who'd mysteriously gone missing, his personnel files classified by high levels of the government. Isaac lived with his girlfriend Nicole, but his career had begun to stagnate about the same time as her assignment - and promotion - to the USG Ishimura, two years prior to its communication blackout. Events of Dead Space Engineer Isaac Clarke was one of the five crew members stationed aboard the USG Kellion when it was dispatched to repair the communications array of the USG Ishimura. While Isaac volunteered for the mission due to his resourceful engineering specialties, his ulterior motives for taking part in the sudden operation were to track down his past girlfriend - and possibly fiancée, Nicole, whom was serving on the Ishimura since her promotion to senior medical officer two years prior. Soon after emerging from hyperspace near the Ishimura's last known position above colony world Aegis 7, the Kellion was struck by a piece of floating debris and forced to crash land in the Ishimura's hangar bay. Shortly after disembarking from the damaged Kellion, noticing that the ship seemed somewhat deserted, the party was set upon by apparent members of the Ishimura's crew, who appeared horribly mutated and exhibited a murderous rage. The wake of the attack left Computer Specialist Kendra Daniels and the team's commander, Captain Zach Hammond shaken, with both pilots killed by Necromorphs and Isaac separated from the rest of the group. Still in touch with Kendra and Hammond via comlink and hololink, Isaac aided in the Ishimura's repair through orders from Hammond and Daniels involving numerous tasks across the ship (despite being opposed at every turn by a severe Necromorphic infestation and, later, the deranged zealot Dr. Challus Mercer). An S.O.S beacon was dispatched by planting it on an asteroid chunk undergoing ore extraction and purging it from the mining hold. The signal attracted the attention of a military vessel, the USM Valor. However, the Valor was quickly overrun by Necromorphs shortly thereafter when it ended up retrieving one of the Ishimura's escape pods, which contained a Slasher that had been trapped and jettisoned from the ship's Bridge by Hammond. With its crew transformed or killed by the Necromorph infestation, the Valor was left to drift out of control and subsequently sideswipe the Ishimura amidships. A successful attempt to retrieve the Valor's singularity core nonetheless resulted in Hammond's death at the mutated hands of a super Brute. Back on the Ishimura, Isaac is contacted by Dr. Terrence Kyne, a scientist who plans to return the Red Marker to colony world Aegis 7 via the remaining shuttle. After Isaac repairs the shuttle with the Valor's singularity core and restores its navigation discs, Kynes is shot and killed by the duplicitous Kendra Daniels. She reveals herself to be a covert government agent, mentioning that the entire conflict on Aegis 7 was due to C.E.C. interference with the Marker. Suit]] Left for dead on the Ishimura, Isaac is saved by Nicole, who appears and compels him to take the Marker back to Aegis 7. Once on the colony world Isaac finds it seemingly abandoned, in disarray and covered in gore and the same alien symbols on the Red Marker. Cutting through the darkness to find many of the dead survirors from the infested ship Pulling the Marker through Necromorph-infested colony, Issac finally succeeds in returning it to it's pedestal, resulting in a massive pule of unknown energy that disables the gravity tethers holding the cracked chunk of Aegis 7, resulting in its slow descent to crash on the colony. However, Kendra Daniels appears and removes the Marker from the pedestal, intending to load it into the shuttle and return to Earth. Before leaving Isaac to his fate, Kendra insists that he has gone insane, forcing him to watch Nicole's last hololog to the end, where she professes her love for him and commits suicide in the wake of the spreading Necromorph infestation. It seems that the Marker itself caused Isaac to hallucinate Nicole's voice and appearance during his horrifying journey through the bowels of the ill-fated Ishimura. Despondent yet determined, Isaac returns to the shuttle pad in time to see a huge tentacle assault a helpless Kendra. Before he can approach her the ground shakes and the smokey air fills with an ear-splitting roar as the "Hive Mind" rears up from the crack crater. Finally revealed after having been kept at bay by the Marker, the Hive viciously attacks Isaac, who nonetheless manages to defeat the beast by destroying it's 'eyes' and 'hearts' just in time to escape the colony as the tectonic load crashes down on the colony, obliterating it and, assumingly, the Red Marker. After narrowly escaping the colony, Issac is left alone on the shuttle to lament his experience. Removing his helmet, he starts playing Nicole's final message on the main holoconsole, but abruptly turns it off due to his heartbroken state. Deactivating all holographic displays, Isaac stares disconsolately into space. A sudden, soft, movement to his right catches his eye and he spins as a stow-away Necromorph that unnervingly resembles Nicole attacks him. Whether this was another hallucination is unknown. Producer Glen Schofield revealed in an interview that Issac isn't dead, meaning that the above encounter was either a hallucination or Issac survived the sudden attack. Trivia *The name Isaac Clarke is an amalgam of world renowned science fiction authors Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. *Although the player can clearly see Clarke's slightly battered face at the end of the game, Isaac's visage can be glimpsed during the game's intro sequence. After the Kellion crash lands inside the Ishimura, the player can rotate the camera view around as Kendra and Hammond argue. Though at this point Clarke's face is not intended to be seen, his face is still fluidly animated like all other characters. *Nicole is not the only person Isaac knew serving aboard the USG Ishimura. A comment in Isaac's "diary" (accessed via the Objectives tab in the menu) that appears while he's on the Mining Deck implies familiarity with some of the mining crew or even implies that he was a crew member on the Ishimura at one time. *Isaac's fate at the end of the game is left very ambiguous, however, in an interview with Game Informer about Dead Space: Extraction, director Glen Schofield said, "Isaac's the icon. And he's not dead yet, so...," seeming to imply that he did indeed survive, but it is possible that he will be killed off in future installments. Category:Characters